Solidarity with Kashmir’s struggle for self-determination

Mushtaq Lasharie and Kumar Sarkar with the panel

by New Worker correspondent 

 A seminar on the latest human rights situation in Kashmir was held at House of Commons last week, organised by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Third World Solidarity. Chaired by Dave Anderson of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and Liz Twist MP, with historian Victoria Schofield, Khalid Mahmood MP, Shadow Minister for Europe and Russia, and Qurban Hussain as main speakers.

The appalling human rights violations by the Indian Government led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) following the latest abrogation on 5th August 2019 of Article 370 of the Constitution of India were the central issue for the seminar. The article was inserted in the constitution in 1949, which gave extraordinary powers to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, lawfully authorising it to have limited autonomy via its own constitution. This was as part of an agreement between the then-ruler of Kashmir, Maharaja Hari Singh, and the Government of India as the condition of Kashmir joining independent India.

Victoria Schofield, author of Kashmir in the Crossfire and Kashmir in Conflict: India, Pakistan and the Unending War, presented a graphic account of the complete lock-down, causing a shortage of food and medicines, and withdrawal of the Internet services. At the same time, students are unable to attend their schools and colleges.

Qurban Hussain, born in Pakistani-protected Free Kashmir (Azad Jammu and Kashmir), highlighted the indiscriminate use of the Armed Forces Special Act by the Indian Army in occupied Kashmir. The Army committed widespread raping of Kashmiri women, picking up young boys from their houses whose dead bodies were then found the following day. He added that some 30,000 Kashmiri people have been put behind bars.

Mushtaq Lasharie, Chair of Third World Solidarity, questioned the role of the United Nations on Kashmir. He drew attention to the fact that numerous resolutions on Kashmir from the Security Council are never implemented; but several participants commented on the non-binding nature of many UN resolutions.

Kumar Sarkar of the Britain South Asia Solidarity Forum, born in India of a Hindu family, speaking from the floor, dealt with the Kashmir struggle in the background of the Indian independence movement. He quoted from Prime Minister Nehru’s speech in the Indian Parliament in 1952 advocating a plebiscite in Kashmir and India’s unequivocal acceptance of the results irrespective of the “hurt we might feel”. The fact that this plebiscite never took place shows that the so-called liberal Indian nationalism advocated by Nehru’s Congress Party and the present sectarian Hindu nationalism of the BJP have deeper roots in the discriminatory nature of Hinduism, to which both were linked. Both existed in parallel all along in India's independence movement. The origin of the BJP’s anti-Muslim nationalism lies directly in the fascistic Hindu caste system; BJP is a proto-fascist force.

This seminar was no doubt useful because it focused on the issues around the lack of human rights in Kashmir and self-determination of the people of Kashmir. But such seminars cannot go beyond advising participants to pressurise their MPs. Serious consideration needs to be paid to the fact that apart from an excellent resolution by the Labour Party on Kashmir, there is no ongoing campaign of solidarity in Britain with the people of Kashmir.